
LINCOLN 
IN NEW ENGLAND 




Book ^_ 



GoRyrightN^^t^Sl 



CQBfRIGHT DKPOBA 



New York 

Stewart, Wakrex & Co., Inc. 

1922 



J^NCOLN IN 
:N^W ENGLAND 



.E35 



Copyright 1922 by 

Percy Coe Eggleston 

New London, Conn. 

All rights reserved 



JRN-4 73 
ct/reaoois- 



LINCOLN 
IN NEW ENGLAND 

By 
Percy Coe Eggleston 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN first set foot on 
New England soil in 1848. He had 
grown as do the oaks, by the inherent 
expansion of the right royal law of 
life. This erstwhile lad of the forest, 
scion of Kentucky, Indiana and Illi- 
nois, rail-splitter, Mississippi boatman, 
frontier storekeeper, deputy surveyor, country 
lawyer, state assembly-man, had in fact grown 
to be one of the most distinguished citizens of 
Illinois and a representative of that state in the 
National House of Representatives. He had taken 
an active part in the work of the Thirtieth Con- 
gress and, when the near approach of the coming 
presidential election enlivened its closing days, he 
had taken the floor and spoken so well in favor of 
"Old Rough and Ready" that his speech was re- 
ported the country over by the Whig press. 

This speech, and the respect inspired by his 
work in Congress, brought Lincoln an invitation 
to deliver a number of campaign speeches in Mass- 

[1] 




achusetts. In September, 1848, he spoke at Wor- 
cester^ Lowell, Dedham, Roxbury, Chelsea, Cam- 
bridge, and on the twenty-second of the month in 
Tremont Temple, Boston. Successful and well re- 
ceived as were these speeches at the time, they were 
not long remembered and in five years Lincoln was 
forgotten and again practically unknown in New 
England. But for Lincoln, himself, something had 
been gained that was to be a force in his own de- 
velopment. This first contact had started his mind 
on an idea that was to become a mighty conviction 
during the twelve years that were to spend their 
course before his second visit to New England. 
What wonder that in this region he gave new im- 
portance to the free soil sentiment and gauged the 
widening breach between the northern belief that 
slavery was evil and unendurable, and the southern 
claim that it was divine and necessary. Such men 
as Sumner, Garrison, Whittier, Lowell, Emerson, 
Palfrey, Hoar, and Adams were already in the 
field, and Massachusetts was quivering under their 
impassioned protests. Sensitive and trained to 
every shade of popular feeling, Lincoln was quick 
to mark the trend of this gathering tide and he re- 
turned to Illinois, believing that slavery was the 
main question — ^the irrepressible question that 
must eventually be met and settled. 

And now that a better insight may be had into 
the events of the short two weeks in which we 
are mainly interested, let us pass briefly in review 
the progress of affairs during the twelve years in- 
tervening between Lincoln's first and second visit 
to New England. 

[2] 



Lincoln returned home feeling his deficiencies, 
and at once started a course of study to raise him- 
self in general culture to the standing of the men 
whom he had met in the East. He resumed the 
practice of law, and for the following six years 
regularly went the rounds of his Judicial Circuit. 
He not only had countless cases of minor im- 
portance but, in the number of more important 
cases conducted before the Supreme Court of his 
state, he distanced all his contemporaries. He 
was losing more and more his old inclination for 
politics when, in May, 1854, he was aroused by 
the passage of the "Kansas-Nebraska Act" which 
annulled the Missouri Compromise and forbade its 
application to Kansas, Nebraska or any other ter- 
ritory. Seventeen years earlier, Lincoln had de- 
clared that slavery was "founded on both injus- 
tice and bad policy." While he believed tliat it 
could not be interfered with in the states where 
it was recognized by the constitution, he approved 
and held sacred the ancient compacts that had 
been made to close the doors against slavery in all 
new territory. The bill had been proposed by 
Stephen A. Douglas, and its passage brouglit Lin- 
coln from the court room to the stump. His 
speeches on this question in reply to Senator Doug- 
las formed the first series of Lincoln-Douglas de- 
bates and proved conclusively that Lincoln was to 
lead the fight in Illinois against the extension of 
slavery. All other issues became as pebbles to 
Gibraltar before this greater one — slavery or no 
slavery in the territories. It was the rock on which 
the Whig party foundered: the southern wing had 

[3] 



voted for the repeal and the northern wing against 
it, so the party was practically no more. Some of 
its members were drawn into the Know-Nothing 
Lodges, some joined the Abolitionists, and others 
drifted about without compass until they came to- 
gether in a new organization which they called Re- 
publican. Lincoln lost no time in taking ground 
•with the new party. He assisted at its birth and 
soon became its acknowledged leader in the state. 
The first National Convention of the party, in 1856, 
surprised him with 110 votes for Vice-President 
against 180 votes for the successful candidate. 
Two years later the Republican State Convention 
unanimously resolved *'that Hon. Abraham Lincoln 
is our first and only choice for United States 
senator to fill the vacancy about to be created by 
the expiration of Mr. Douglas's term of office." 
In publicly accepting the nomination, Lincoln ut- 
tered the memorable words, "A house divided 
against itself cannot stand. I believe that this 
government cannot endure permanently, half slave 
and half free. I do not expect the union to be dis- 
solved — I do not expect the house to fall; but I 
do expect it will cease to be divided." With these 
prophetic words, uttered against the advice of his 
conservative friends, Lincoln opened the campaign 
against Douglas. The famous Lincoln-Douglas 
debates followed, in which Lincoln won a series of 
victories that astonished the country. His success 
did not win him the senatorship, but it awakened 
an interest in him that spread with the wider read- 
ing and discussion of his arguments. He was be- 
sieged by letters of congratulation; invitations to 

[4] 



lecture and to speak poured in upon him. Most 
of these invitations he declined, but among those 
accepted was the one that brought him to New 
York in the early winter of 1860. 

Here, on February 27th, Lincoln delivered his 
famous Cooper Union speech, which stands out 
superb as a political masterpiece and is worthy an 
enduring place in our country's literature. It also 
marks the exact point of time and circumstance in 
Lincoln's career, following immediately upon which 
he entered New England for the second time. 

Sometimes a distinction is drawn between occa- 
sion and cause. If this distinction is to be applied 
to Lincoln's second visit to New England, then 
the occasion for it may be explained by his own 
presence in New York, and the opportunity that 
it afforded him to visit his eldest son Robert, who 
was then a student at Exeter Academy in New 
Hampshire. But the cause that drew Lincoln not 
only to New Hampshire, but to other points in 
New England, must be assigned to other grounds. 
Lincoln was known in the East mainly as one of 
the best political speakers of his party. He was 
regarded as an active party worker from the West, 
but in no sense as probable presidential timber. 
But out in Illinois, the notion had been growing, 
since the Lincoln-Douglas debates, that Lincoln 
was a really great man, and his friends had quietly 
reached the decision that, when the Republican 
National Convention met in Chicago in May, Illi- 
nois would present his name as her one and only 
choice for President. Lincoln knew of this de- 
termination on the part of his friends, and also 

[6] 



knew that things had already gone so far that it 
was now practically sure that his name would be 
presented. Concerning this situation, about which 
the East was ignorant, he was fully informed at 
the time of his Cooper Union speech. As soon 
as Lincoln reached New York, he was importuned 
to enter New England and lend the force of his 
logic to help in carrying the state elections which 
were then pending. Hon. N. D. Sperry, of New 
Haven, then chairman of the Republican State 
Central Committee of Connecticut, sent a repre- 
sentative to New York and was successful in ar- 
ranging for Lincoln to visit Connecticut, which 
state was doubtful and likely in its gubernatorial 
contest to go either way. Similarly Lincoln was 
approached by party leaders from New Hampshire 
and Rhode Island. The situation as he saw it 
was that his name was sure to be presented to 
the Republican National Convention to be held in 
two months ; he was little known in New England, 
and those who had this little knowledge had drawn 
it from the conflicting reports of a rankly partisan 
press; here was an opportunity to labor for the 
good of the general cause, and at the same time 
to make himself known, to create confidence in 
his sincerity and possibly gain some support in 
tiiis influential section. All this might be done by 
the power of personal contact and without prema- 
turely disclosing the project upon which his west- 
ern friends were already hard at work. These 
considerations had their weight and are really the 
cause, while the opportunity to visit his son is 
merely the occasion, for his second visit to this 
section. 

[6] 



It is a surprising fact that, notwithstanding all 
that has been written about Mr. Lincoln, his biog- 
raphers have treated his New England trip with 
scant brevity and a great deal of inaccuracy. The 
work of Nicolay and Hay, which in other respects 
is the best and most complete authority on Lin- 
coln's life, dismisses the trip with a single para- 
graph which does no more than briefly picture the 
general impression that Lincoln made upon the 
locality. No details are preserved, and practically 
nothing of date, route or incident is to be learned 
from this authority. Lamon's work places Mr. 
Lincoln's son, Robert, at Harvard at the time; 
and Coffin makes the same mistake. The fact is 
that Robert T. Lincoln did not enter Harvard un- 
til the September following, seven months after 
this visit. Lamon gives a correct list of the Con- 
necticut speeches, but without dates. He makes 
no mention of the speeches at Providence, Rhode 
Island, and at Exeter and Dover, New Hamp- 
shire. Tarbell gives some of the Connecticut 
speeches with correct dates, but mentions none at 
Providence, Rhode Island, nor at Meriden and 
Bridgeport, Connecticut. Coffin makes the mis- 
take of having Mr. Lincoln speak at New Haven 
and Meriden before visiting Hartford, and men- 
tions no speeches at Providence and AVoonsocket, 
Rhode Island, none at Exeter and Dover, New 
Hampshire, and none at Bridgeport, Connecticut. 
These inaccuracies and contradictions prevail not 
only among the writers mentioned but to an even 
greater extent among those less well known, and 
less often consulted. It comes about from this 



[7] 



condition of affairs, that the investigator, who 
wishes to follow the course and dates of this itin- 
erary, cannot obtain his information from any 
single one of the standard works on Lincoln, and, 
when he attempts to select and combine informa- 
tion from several of them, he soon finds himself 
involved in a network of conflicting statements and 
dates that must eventually drive him for an accu- 
rate determination of the facts to the evidence 
furnished by the old newspaper files of the day. 

A brief schedule condensed mainly from this 
reliable source will, therefore, disabuse our minds, 
at the outset, of all wrong impressions and infer- 
ences regarding the general direction and progress 
of this trip and also provide a framework for 
securing in their right succession some of its inci- 
dents, concerning which we propose later to deal 
in some detail. Starting with Tuesday, February 
28th, the day following the Cooper Union speech, 
the itinerary that Mr. Lincoln adhered to was as 
follows : 

Tuesday, February 28th, speech at Providence, R. I., 
evening. 

Wednesday, February 29th, no speech, en route to 
New Hampshire. 

Thursday, March 1st, speech at Concord, N. H., 
afternoon; speech at Manchester, N. H., evening. 

Friday, March 2nd, speech at Dover, N. H., evening. 

Saturday, March 3rd, speech at Exeter, N. H., evening. 

Sunday, March 4th, spent day with son Robert at 
Exeter, N. H. 

Monday, March 5th, speech at Hartford, Conn., eve- 
ning. 

Tuesday, March 6th, speech at New Haven, Conn., 
evening. 

Wednesday, March 7th, speech at Meriden, Conn., 
evening. 

[8] 



Thursday, March 8th, speech at Woonsocket, R. I., 
evening. 

Friday, March 9th, speech at Norwich, Conn., evening. 

Saturday, March 10th, speech at Bridgeport, Conn., 
evening. 

This schedule shows that Mr. Lincoln went 
direct from New York to Providence where he 
spoke on the evening of Tuesday, February 28th, 
in Railroad Hall. His Providence audience was 
large and enthusiastic, as his coming had been ad- 
vertised and everyone was eager to hear the man 
whose speech had so impressed a New York audi- 
ence on the night preceding. How fully their ex- 
pectations were realized is shown by the fact that, 
before Mr. Lincoln left Providence, the party man- 
agers had arranged that, on his return from New 
Hampshire, he should speak at Woonsocket, situ- 
ated some fifteen or twenty miles north of Provi- 
dence and an accessible manufacturing center 
where it was believed that Lincoln would exercise 
a tremendous influence in offsetting **the silly 
gabble about John Brown and Helperism." 

Still further proof of the enthusiasm created 
by Mr. Lincoln in Providence is to be found in 
the preparations made to take care of the large 
crowd that it was anticipated would wish to hear 
his later speech at Woonsocket, and these prepara- 
tions are hinted at in the advertisements that 
appeared in the Providence papers on the days 
following : 

"Hon. Abraham Lincoln of Illinois will address the 
citizens of "Woonsocket on the politics of the day, on 
Thursday evening next. The meeting will be held in 
the spacious and elegant hall belonging to Mr. Edward 
Harris. It will be a great gathering."' * * * All 

[9] 



Providence people desiring to hear the speech "are 
particularly requested to call at the Republican Head- 
quarters No. 11 Westminster Street, before the day of 
the meeting and leave their names." 

The day following his speech in Providence was 
the only week day during his entire stay in New 
England on which Lincoln made no speech. This 
day, Wednesday, February 29th, was spent in 
reaching New Hampshire. Sometime during this 
day, or during the course of the next morning, he 
was joined by his son, Robert, who very likely 
remained with him and accompanied hira to the 
several places where he spoke in New Hampshire. 
Thursday, March 1st, was one of the busiest 
days of the trips. Lincoln spoke at Concord in 
the afternoon and at Manchester in the evening. 
These speeches were reported in the New Hamp- 
shire papers and can be referred to in many of 
the standard works on Lincoln. Judge David 
Cross of Manchester, while alive at the age of 
eighty-eight, gave his personal recollections of the 
meeting at Manchester in the following words: 

"Mr. Lincoln spoke here on the evening of March 1, 
1860. He had spoken at Concord in the afternoon of 
the same day, I think. He came from Exeter where 
he had been on a visit to his son, Robert, at the Exeter 
Academy, and Robert came to Manchester with him. 
The meeting was held in Smyth's Hall and Governor 
Frederick Smyth presided. There were more than a 
thousand people present, and every seat was taken, and 
many were standing. It is very difficult to give any 
adequate idea of the speech or of the effect upon the 
audience. The audience was composed of men and 
women, about half of them Democrats and the rest 
Republicans, with a few rabid Abolitionists. Mr. Lin- 
coln had talked but a few minutes before he had the 

[10] 



eye and the closest attention of every person in the 
hall. He won the favorable attention of the audience 
by his clearness, tact and fairness upon facts, to which 
all agreed. He talked for about an hour and a half; 
no one left the hall, no one was restless, but everyone 
watched him closely and continually. At first, only a 
small part of the audience v/as in full sympathy with 
him, but, gradually, he won the interest and the ad- 
miration and the enthusiasm of all. 

"The general tone of his address was similar to his 
speeches in Illinois in regard to slavery. I remember 
distinctly that Rev. Mr. Foss, a violent Abolitionist 
and an able and honest man, one of the Parker- 
Pillsbury-Garrison followers, occasionally interrupted 
him and asked him questions. After a while the audi- 
ence cried, 'Throw him out.- Mr. Lincoln replied, 'No, 
no, let him stay, he is just the man I want to see and 
to answer. Now, my friend, what is your question? 
Let's talk together, I want you to jaw back.' Mr. Foss 
asked Mr. Lincoln several questions and Lincoln replied, 
and soon Mr. Foss was applauding with the rest of 
the audience, and after the meeting was over, Foss 
took Lincoln by the hand and thanked him and said, 
'You are the only man that has ever talked to me in 
this way and I am not sure but you are right.' 

"I remember Lincoln, somewhere in his talk with 
Foss, said to him, 'Now, my friend, you are in favor 
of dis-union. You think the only way is for the North 
and South to separate, but I tell you to stay with us 
and in the end the whole country will be free.' I re- 
member a leading Democrat of Manchester, after the 
meeting, told me that was the best speech I ever heard 
in my life and I don't believe there is another man 
that can equal him.' 

"The impression in my mind as he delivered that 
address is, that he seemed quaint and almost strange in 
manner and expression, but he seemed a man of in- 
tense earnestness and sincerity, gifted with all the arts 
of the best stump speaker, but also, like some old 
prophet, solemnly delivering his message of warning and 
exhortation to the people. I doubt if there was a per- 

[11] 



son in the audience who didn't applaud his speech, 
although many of them did not agree with him." 

Manchester is the only place in New England 
that held a dreamer so bold as to publicly intro- 
duce Lincoln as the next President of the United 
States. Governor Smyth, to whom reference was 
made by Judge Cross in his recollections given 
above, met Lincoln at the cars and, after some in- 
troductory conversation, Lincoln remarked that he 
had just been reading William Seward's speech at 
Auburn. And upon Mr. Smyth's inquiring, "What 
do you think of it?" Mr. Lincoln replied, "I am 
delighted with it. That speech will make Mr. 
Seward the next president of the United States." 
Later Governor Smyth presided at the meeting in 
the hall and himself took the liberty of introducing 
Mr. Lincoln as the next president of the United 
States. Lincoln made no allusion to the introduc- 
tion at the time. But later in conversation with 
Governor Smyth at the hotel, Lincoln remarked 
that the introduction at the meeting that evening 
had taken him by surprise as he had never before 
been so introduced. "But of course," said he, 
"you didn't mean anything?" Governor Smyth 
stated that he did believe what he had said, and 
that, if Lincoln had made the same impression in 
the other states where he had spoken as he had 
made that day on the people of New Hampshire, 
he would certainly receive the presidential nomi- 
nation. Mr. Lincoln replied with earnestness, "No ! 
no! that is impossible. Mr. Seward should and 
will receive the nomination. I do not believe that 
three states will vote for me in the convention." 

[12] 



In their effect upon his hearers, Lincoln's 
speeches at Dover on Friday, March 2nd, and at 
Exeter, on Saturday, March 3rd, were repetitions 
of his success at Concord and Manchester. Sun- 
day, March 4th, was spent quietly with his son 
Robert, at Exeter. The old Phillips church where 
he attended divine service is now torn down but 
the pew, in which it is claimed Lincoln sat, was 
still extant several years ago and, at that time, 
carefully stored away in a cellar in Exeter. 

Monday morning, March 5th, Mr. Lincoln left 
Exeter for Connecticut. New Hampshire had 
pressed him into the work beyond his expectations. 
His original plan had been to speak in Hartford 
on the evening of Friday, March 2nd, but the de- 
mand upon him for the speeches at Dover and 
Exeter had made it necessary to telegraph and set 
ahead his engagement at Hartford, which change 
of program must have been a very congenial one, 
as it made it possible for him to spend all of 
Sunday with his son at Exeter. 

Lincoln's speech at City Hall, Hartford, on the 
evening of Monday, March 5th, had the same close 
attention and created the same degree of enthu- 
siasm as his earlier speeches in New Hampshire. 
Such was Lincoln's reception everywhere in Con- 
necticut. Large and enthusiastic crowds turned 
out to hear him and, in this respect, his success in 
one city was but a repetition of his success in 
another. So far as this aspect of his stay in Con- 
necticut is concerned, this simple statement will 
suffice for all the stopping places and describe the 
conditions under which he spoke at each. 

[13] 



Two incidents connected with Lincoln's visit to 
Hartford are of noteworthy interest. Here began 
that personal acquaintance with Governor Buck- 
ingham which afterwards secured to the Governor 
so much influence in the nation's affairs, and gave 
his suggestions so much weight in shaping its 
policy. Buckingham entertained Lincoln while in 
Hartford and introduced him to his audience. So 
far as events could then be foreseen, Buckingham 
was more interested in the canvass than was Lin- 
coln. He was again the Republican candidate for 
governor, and his re-election depended upon the 
result of the ballots to be cast the month follow- 
ing. Here also Lincoln first came in touch with 
the "Wide-Awake" movement, which became such 
a distinguishing feature of the campaign of 1860. 
The origin of the movement was purely accidental. 
A month earlier Cassius M. Clay had spoken in 
Hartford. A few ardent Republicans bearing 
torches had accompanied him as a kind of body- 
guard. Two of the young men, being dry-goods 
clerks, in order to protect their clothing from the 
dripping of the torches, had prepared capes of 
black cambric, which they wore in connection with 
the glazed caps commonly worn at the time. The 
marshal of the parade, noticing the uniform, put 
the wearers at the front where the utility and 
show of the rig attracted much attention. It was 
at once proposed to substitute oil-cloth for the 
cambric capes and adopt the uniform for a club 
of fifty torch bearers. In calling a meeting for 
that purpose, the "Hartford Courant" hit upon 
the term "Wide-Awakes" and it was appropriated 

[U] 



as the name of the organization. Before the new 
uniforms were all ready, Lincoln made his Hart- 
ford address. After his speech, such members of 
the organization as had secured their uniforms 
escorted Lincoln to his hotel. This company be- 
came known as the "Originals" in distinction from 
the other "Wide- Awake" organizations that at once 
sprang into life in other cities. During the fol- 
lowing summer and fall, these bands, bearing blaz- 
ing coal-oil torches, paraded the streets of almost 
every northern city and town, arousing everywhere 
the wildest fervor and enthusiasm and just one 
year after the "Originals" escorted Mr. Lincoln in 
their first parade, he was inaugurated President 
of the United States. 

From Hartford, Lincoln went to New Haven. 
The largest hall in the city was located over Joss- 
lyn's livery stable, and there Lincoln spoke on 
the evening of Tuesday, March 6th. Former 
Congressman N. D. Sperry, now deceased, has 
stated that "his speech captivated all who heard 
it." The following incident is related by a num- 
ber of Lincoln's biographers, and is claimed to 
have been referred to by Lincoln himself in a 
conversation that he had in Norwich, several 
days later, witli Rev. John P. Gulliver. A Pro- 
fessor of Rhetoric in Yale College came to hear 
Lincoln. He was so impressed with what he 
heard that he took out his note-book and made 
notes of the address, and next day gave it to his 
class as a model; and not satisfied with one hear- 
ing, followed Lincoln to Meriden, where he again 
drank in the orator's marvelous eloquence. When 
one of the leading historians of Europe has de- 
[15] 



nominated Lincoln style as "masterly, cogent, 
splendidly strong and simple beyond description", 
there is nothing in this incident per se that places 
it beyond what would have been entirely possible 
and likely as an actual occurrence. It must be 
said, however, that the incident is one that has 
not readily proven itself as an actual fact. The 
Professor of Rhetoric at Yale was William A. 
Larned, who died in 1862. He instructed the 
Senior Class in recitations from "Demosthenes on 
the Crown" but those acquainted with the man 
say he was one not likely to have followed the 
course described; and further than this, no mem- 
ber of the class of 1860 has been found who can 
remember the incident. It seems more likely to 
have been a "hearsay" story that was going the 
rounds at the time, and Lincoln's facetious use of 
it indicates that he regarded it more as such than 
as an actual fact. 

On Wednesday evening, March 7th, the extra 
train from New Haven took about three hundred, 
besides the orator, to Meriden. A torch-light pro- 
cession escorted Lincoln to the great town hall, 
where he spoke to an audience that literally packed 
the building. 

On Thursday, March 8th, the day following the 
speech in Meriden, Mr. Lincoln spent some three 
hours in New London, a fact that is little known 
among the present residents of that city. Even 
after what is to the historian a comparatively 
short lapse of time, most of the New Londoners, 
who took the opportunity to meet Mr. Lincoln, 
have passed away, and it is now too late to draw 

[16] 



upon their recollections. The late Mr. Julius W. 
Eggleston, father of the author, was at the time 
chairman of the Republican Town Committee of 
New London, and, in that capacity, he had the 
honor of entertaining Mr. Lincoln during his stay 
in the city. By supplementing what is still to be 
found in the old news files, with the statements of 
people until a few years ago still living, and 
with the things told in his own family and among 
his friends by the then chairman of the Republican 
Town Committee, some facts regarding the visit, 
are still preserved. And first of all, attention may 
be directed to an incorrect statement in the New 
Year's greeting in verse, that appeared in the 
New London Chronicle of January 1st, 1861, after 
the following manner: 

"Here, too, we've had a famous year, 
Tremendous things have happened here. 
Bucks and Chepultepecs came out 
In rival crowds with din and shout. 
A mighty crowd one evening stood 
To hear and cheer Fernando Wood. 
Then Lincoln came, bold, stout and tall — 
He made his speech in Lawrence Hall. 
Then Douglas next, bold, stout and short. 
He smiled, and praised our spacious port. 
Looked round, and said, *From such a home. 
How could my honored grandsire roam !' " 
Notwithstanding that this verse was composed 
less than ten months after Lincoln's visit, still the 
statement that he spoke in Lawrence Hall is un- 
doubtedly incorrect. It may be explained on the 
ground of poetic license, or more likely it is due 
to the vagaries of the bard's memory. Certain it 
is that people would have heard the speech, or at 
least known of it, if it had been delivered, but 

[17] 



their testimony is that Mr. Lincoln made no pub- 
lic speech in New London. Further than this, it 
is also certain that, if such a speech had been 
delivered, some reference would have been made 
to it in the following item of local intelligence that 
appeared in the New London Daily Chronicle, of 
the next day, March 9th, 1860: 

"Hon. Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, was in the city 
yesterday. He came on from New Haven on his way 
to Providence, and remained here some three hours." 

While the New Year's greeting for January 1st, 
1861, is thus shown to be unquestionably incorrect 
in its reference to Lincoln's speech, still it affords 
a fairly correct idea of the city he visited: 
"Our Mayor Harris keeps the peace. 
Our merchants thrive though whales decrease. 
» ♦ # ♦ « 

Ten thousand people in our town. 
Ten churches scattered up and down. 
Twelve hundred houses too and more; 
The public schools are twenty-four. 
Five banks that discount more or less. 
Four telegraphs and one express. 
Two daily papers always joking, 
Always sharp retort provoking. 

* * * « « 

The whalers, thirty-eight complete. 
» « « « « 

Fish markets by the waters bound. 
Where fish may all the year be found — 
Cod, mackerel, oyster— what you wish, 
We challenge all the coast in fish. 
Fire engines five, whose gallant bands. 
Alert, with willing hearts and hands. 
Are prompt with hose and steady aim, 
To grapple with devouring flame. 
What more? Why clubs and sewing, bees, 

[18] 



Odd-fellows, Masons, Christmas trees; 
Sweet carols that the children sing, 
And lectures every week till spring." 
Coming now to the real facts and details of 
Mr. Lincoln's visit to New London, the following 
are known to be correct. His decision to stop here 
was unexpected, and too short notice was given 
to allow any preparation for his reception. A tele- 
gram from the Hon. Nehemiah D. Sperry, of New 
Haven, reached the chairman of the New London 
Republican Town Committee in the morning, 
shortly preceding Mr. Lincoln's arrival. Mr. Egg- 
leston went to the railway station but, through 
some inadvertence, there failed to intercept Mr. 
Lincoln. Thinking something might have prevented 
Mr. Lincoln from carrying out his purpose as tele- 
graphed, Mr. Eggleston left tjie station and started 
back up the main street of the city. He had not 
proceeded far when his attention was attracted by 
the remarkable appearance of a figure, a short 
distance in advance. As viewed from the rear, the 
stranger appeared over six feet tall, his length of 
leg seeming out of proportion to his body. As he 
walked, he stooped slightly forward. He was a 
little pigeon-toed and this, with a peculiar method 
of setting his whole foot flat on the ground, made 
his gait a peculiar one. His ears were large, 
standing out from his head; hair was rather long 
and unkempt. He wore a suit of black broadcloth, 
somewhat wrinkled and apparently so much too 
small as to give the impression of a standing con- 
troversy between his trousers and his limbs. His 
hands were large and hung far below the confines 

[19] 



of his coat sleeves. In one of them, he carried by 
means of handles attached midway of its length, 
a long, cylindrical leather bag, a shape quite com- 
mon at that date and rarely seen at the present 
time. The entire figure tallied with the descrip- 
tions in the press and could not be mistaken. Mr. 
Eggleston recognized it and knew that it could 
belong to one man only and that man was Lin- 
coln. The visitor was taken to the old City Hotel, 
which hostelry has since been demolished. In his 
room, he was asked whether something could be 
ordered for him from the bar. He replied "No", 
and added either that he "never" or that he 
"scarcely ever took anj^thing of that sort." And 
pausing here in our account, may we not remark 
the consistency between this statement and what 
occurred three months later in Lincoln's own home 
in Springfield, when the committee appointed by 
the National Republican Coxnvention called to ad- 
vise him of his nomination. "Gentlemen," said 
Lincoln, "you will be thirsty after your long jour- 
ney" and, leading them into the library, he pointed 
them to a plain table, glasses and a pitcher of 
water. But returning now to our guest in the City 
Hotel. Mr. Lincoln had not yet dined. While he 
sat down to his meal, Mr. Eggleston started out 
to find and bring in the prominent Republicans of 
the city. He met with a poor response and a chill- 
ing lack of interest. Several of the party leaders 
exhibited no little impatience. "Who was Lincoln, 
anyway.'' A man indeed that the sparsely set- 
tled West might consider of some prominence but 
he would not go in the East. No, they hadn't 

[20] 



any time to meet him." Some few, however, were 
found who went to the hotel and met Lincoln — 
probably Mayor J. N. Harris, Hon. Henry P. 
Haven and a number of others. It would be in- 
teresting at this date to know the views that Lin- 
coln there expressed and the terms in which he 
couched them. Certain it is that the conversation 
M^as mainly political, but the only remnant of what 
was said is one statement of Lincoln's showing his 
analysis of himself as a public speaker. "I am 
not much of a rouser as a public speaker," said 
Lincoln. "I do not and cannot put on frills and 
fancy touches. If there is anything that I can 
accomplish, it is that I can state the question and 
demonstrate the strength of our position by plain, 
logical argument." 

Either the next day, March 9th, in going from 
Providence, Rhode Island, to Norwich, Connecti- 
cut, or one day later, March 10th, in passing from 
Norwich to Bridgeport, Mr. Lincoln was again in 
the railway station at New London for a few 
moments. There appeared a respected citizen of 
New London, familiarly known as "Uncle Peter", 
with his daughter Sarah's autograph album and 
solicited Lincoln for his autograph. In his good- 
humored and clumsy way, Lincoln took the album, 
and securing a pen, laid the book against the side 
walls of the waiting room and, with his long legs 
stretched in an ungainly angle, and feet braced far 
apart on the floor, taking infinite pains that the 
book should not slip, he inscribed in now familiar 
characters the name "A. Lincoln." 

From New London, Mr. Lincoln took an after- 

[21] 



noon train for Providence, in order to keep the 
engagement that he had made to address a meet- 
ing at Woonsocket, Rhode Island. The notice ac- 
corded this meeting of Thursday, March 8th, by 
the Providence papers, had interested many people 
who had failed to hear Lincoln a week earlier, 
and a crowd of some four or five hundred with a 
band of music met the orator at the Providence 
station and accompanied him to Woonsocket. Large 
numbers joined the excursionists along the line of 
the road so that Harris Hall, the largest assembly 
room in Woonsocket, and one of the largest in the 
State, was greatly taxed to accommodate the as- 
sembled crowd. Lincoln made a powerful address 
and was followed by other speakers. There was 
plenty of music by the band, stirring campaign 
songs by the "Du Dah Club" which had accom- 
panied the excursion, and on the whole there was 
no end to the enthusiasm until midnight when the 
orator and his escort were again landed, on their 
return, at the station at Providence. 

In anticipation of Lincoln's speech at Norwich, 
Connecticut, on Friday, March 9th, the evening 
following the meeting at Woonsocket, the Repub- 
licans of that place had been making active prep- 
arations. It was the home city of Governor Wil- 
liam A. Buckingham, and the rival political clubs 
were stirring up a lively interest in the issues of 
the campaign. On one side were ranged "the 
Bucks" whose name had been appropriated in ab- 
breviated form from the name of the Republican 
gubernatorial candidate; opposed to them, were 
"the Chepultepecs" who took their name from the 

[22] 



circumstance that the Democratic candidate had 
fought in the Mexican War at the battle of Che- 
pultepec. Mr. Lincoln's coming was a gala occa- 
sion for "the Bucks'*^ and the following advertise- 
ment from the Norwich Weekly Courier of Thurs- 
day, March 8th, shows that it was proposed to 
make the most of the event: 

GREAT REPUBLICAN RALLY 

Hon. Abraham Lincoln of Illinois 

will address 

The Citizens of Noewich 

next Friday Evening, at 7 o'clock 

"The Republican Committee hope to be able to pro- 
cure Breed Hall for the occasion; but, as it is other- 
wise engaged at present and they may possibly fail to 
secure it, arrangements will be made whereby the great- 
est possible number will be privileged to hear the great 
Western orator, of which arrangements, if necessary, 
timely notice will be given. 

"All parties are invited. The Republicans are not 
afraid or ashamed to avow their principles or to hold 
them up to the consideration of their political opponents. 

"If Breed Hall is secured (and we believe it will be) 
the galleries will be exclusively devoted to the accommo- 
dation of ladies." 

The town hall was filled to its utmost capacity 
by the audience that assembled on the appointed 
evening, to listen to Mr. Lincoln. He was es- 
corted to the hall by the "Buck Club", and the 
chair was occupied by Hon. Joseph G. Lamb, first 
Vice-President of that organization, in the absence 
of its President, H. H. Starkweather, Esq., who 
was confined to his home by sickness. A delega- 
tion was expected from Danielson, and the opening 

[23] 



of the meeting was delayed in the hope of its 
arrival. Mr. Lincoln had already commenced his 
speech when this delegation of over one hundred 
entered the hall and he was obliged to pause while 
it was greeted with three cheers from the audience. 

A later reference to this Norwich speech makes 
it unnecessary at this point to concern ourselves 
with the drift of Mr. Lincoln's remarks. An ut- 
terance of one of the speakers who followed him is 
of sufficient interest to deserve a passing mention. 
It was expressed with the most complimentary in- 
tentions towards Mr. Lincoln but, at the National 
Convention at Chicago, it was the very thing to 
save Lincoln from which, his friends had their 
greatest struggle. Hon. Daniel P. Tyler of Brook- 
lyn, was the speaker and in these words referred 
to a possibility that Lincoln might be honored 
with the nomination for Vice-President: 

"I care much as to who is to be the nominee for 
President but more for him who is to be nominated for 
Vice-President. Would it not, my friends, be 'nuts' to 
us all to find out some daj*- before long, that Stephen 
A. Douglas, when he goes into the senate chamber of 
the United States, should see the Vice-President's chair 
filled by one he so much fears and we and all good 
Republicans so deservedly esteem? That would be the 
long and short of the matter of the late Illinois election." 

The speaker, and the audience that so loudly 
applauded, believed that the sentiment did Lincoln 
the very extreme of honor, that its allusions swept 
the entire horizon of Lincoln's ambition and possi- 
ble aspirations. To keep him from being relegated 
to this very office, to save him from Seward's ad- 
herents who were anxious to give him a secondary 
place on a ticket headed by their own candidate — 

[24] 



this was one of the great difficulties that his friends 
had to surmount in the national convention of 
three months later. 

Up to this point, the course of Mr. Lincoln's 
progress through New England has been followed 
from point to point, and allusion has been made 
to some of the incidents along the way. There 
has been little or no reference to the manner in 
which Mr. Lincoln was addressing himself to his 
New England audiences, although some curiosity 
must have been aroused on the subject, and it is 
of quite as much interest as any other feature of 
the trip. The large audiences with which he was 
everywhere greeted, the close and careful atten- 
tion accorded his remarks, tlieir subsequent effect 
in stirring his hearers to a self-investigation as 
to the basic principles of their belief — all bear 
indubitable evidence that Mr. Lincoln had some- 
thing to say of more than ordinary weight and that 
he presented it in a straightforward and logical 
manner that carried conviction home to his hearers. 
Probably no public speaker, at first glance and 
before his face had caught the light of animated 
discourse, was ever more unattractive to look upon. 
The oddities of Mr. Lincoln's appearance have 
been so fully dwelt upon, by every author who has 
essayed to write about him, that they are familiar 
to every one. His face was unusually and notice- 
ably barren of promise; his figure was grotesque; 
his voice was peculiar, though not unpleasant. 
Commanding presence and grace of carriage could 
have little part in his speaking. His success, 
therefore, was purely a triumph of the touch of 

[25] 



his mind on that of his hearer; and being so, it 
is of special interest to examine somewhat into 
the matter of his spoken word. In doing so, we 
should not be surprised to find that, while his talks 
often went into new fields and touched upon mat- 
ters of special local interest, still never in their 
main lines did they depart far from his great 
Cooper Union speech; and quite naturally not, for 
in that speech, he had held the strategical posi- 
tions that his experience of years had taught him 
were the right and tenable ones for him to hold 
and he had used the sure phraseology in stating 
and defending them that had best defended them 
against Douglas and his other political adversaries 
on the stump. If there are occasional places in 
these New England speeches, where they seem to 
repeat one another and the Cooper Union speech 
almost word for word, it is for such reason, and 
not because Mr. Lincoln used any extensive writ- 
ten notes; on the contrary, his usual habit was to 
speak without notes or from the briefest jottings, 
and it is known that on the very day on which 
his Cooper Union speech was delivered, he could 
furnish the reporters no advance sheets and did 
not even know that such a procedure was custom- 
ary in the East. 

As a good example of one of these New England 
speeches, take the one delivered at New Haven on 
March 6th and repeated at Norwich a few eve- 
nings later. In its entirety, an hour and a half 
was required for its delivery. Without attempt- 
ing to quote it at any great length, we can indi- 
cate its general arrangement and briefly quote to 

[2(5] 



advantage several of its most noticeable and char- 
acteristic parts. 

After referring to the near approach of another 
presidential election, Mr. Lincoln announced the 
main and only topic with which he was concerned 
in the following words: 

"Whether we will or not, the question of slavery is 
the question, the all absorbing topic of the day. It is 
true that all of us — and by that I mean, not the Re- 
publican Party alone but the whole American people, 
here and elsewhere, wish this question out of the way. 
It prevents the adjustment and the giving of necessary 
attention to other questions of national importance. 
The people of the whole nation agree that this ques- 
tion ought to be settled and yet it is not settled. And 
the reason is that they are not agreed how. All wish 
it done, but some wish one way and some another and 
none of them are able to accomplish the common object." 

Starting with this introduction, the speaker re- 
viewed the history of tlie slavery agitation and the 
various compromises and covenants that had been 
made, showing how in each case it had been fondly 
hoped that the question had been settled, but how 
time and again the agitation had broken out afresh. 
He showed how the best and greatest of our 
statesmen had underestimated its importance by 
"applying small cures for great sores" and drew a 
contrast between the different lights in which it 
was regarded in the North and in the South. Tlien, 
with great clearness and fairness, he stated the 
only possible policies that could be followed in 
dealing with the question, illustrating the situation 
in his most characteristic manner. As the whole 
kernel of the slavery situation, as viewed by Lin- 
coln, is summed up in this portion of his address 

[27] 



and as it so characteristically displays iils method 
of exposition, the speech at this point is again 
given verbatim: 

"There are but two policies in regard to slavery that 
can be at all maintained. The first, based on the prop- 
erty view that slavery is right, conforms to that idea 
throughout and demands that we shall do everything for 
it that we ought to do, if it were right. We must sweep 
away all opposition, for opposition to the right is wrong; 
we must agree that slavery is right and we must adopt 
the idea, that property has made the owner believe, that 
slavery is morally right and socially elevating. This 
gives a philosophical basis for a permanent policy of 
encouragement. The other policy is the one that squares 
with the idea that slavery is wrong, and it consists in 
doing everything that we ought to do, if it is wrong. 
Now I don't wish to be misunderstood nor to leave a 
gap down, to be misrepresented even. I don't mean 
that we ought to attack it where it exists. To me it 
seems that, if we were to form a government anew, in 
view of the actual presence of slavery, we should find it 
necessary to frame just such a government as our 
fathers did; giving to the slaveholder the entire con- 
trol where the system was established, while we pos- 
sessed the power to restrain it from going outside those 
limits. From the necessities of the case, we should be 
compelled to form just such a government as our blessed 
fathers gave us; and, surely if they have so made it, 
that adds another reason why we should let slavery 
alone where it exists. If I saw a venomous snake crawl- 
ing in the road, any man would say I might seize the 
nearest stick and kill it; but if I found that snake in 
bed with my children, that would be another question. 
I might hurt the children more than the snake and 
more than it might hurt them. Much more, if I found 
it in bed with my neighbor's children and I had bound 
myself by a solemn compact not to meddle with his 
children under any circumstances, it would become me 
to let that particular mode of getting rid of the gentle- 
man alone. But if there was a bed newly made up, to 

[28] 



which the children were to be taken, and it was pro- 
posed to take a batch of young snakes and put them 
there with them, I take it no man would say there 
was any question how I ought to decide. That is just 
the case! The new territories are the newly made bed 
to which our children are to go, and it lies with the 
nation to say whether they shall have snakes mixed up 
with them or not. It does not seem as if there could 
be much hesitation what our policy should be. 

"Now I have spoken of a policy based on the idea 
that slavery is wrong and a policy based upon the 
idea that it is right. But an effort has been made for 
a policy that shall treat it as neither right or wrong." 
(Its leading exponent is Senator Douglas.) "I believe 
there is no danger of its becoming a permanent policy 
of the country for it is based on public indifference. 
There is nobody that don't care. All the people do 
care, one way or the other. This policy can be brought 
to prevail if the people can be brought to say honestly 
•we don't care'; if not, it can never be maintained. It 
is for you to say whether that can be done." 

Having thus clearly outlined the several poli- 
cies, Mr. Lincoln went on to show that in adopting 
the policy of restraint, his party but desired to 
place the question where the fathers had placed it 
in making the constitution. Passing next to the 
charges made by his political opponents, he took 
them up one by one and answered them in detail 
as they had been answered in his Cooper Union 
speech — ^the matter of John Brown and Harper's 
Ferry, the accusation of sectionalism, the charge 
of lack of conservatism. He questioned whether 
anything short of ceasing to call slavery wrong 
and the ultimate overthrow of the free-state con- 
stitutions would satisfy the South, and concluded 
with this splendid exhortation: 

"Let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effectively. 

[29] 



Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical con- 
trivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and 
belabored — contrivances, such as groping for some mid- 
dle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as 
the search for a man who should neither be a live man 
or a dead man — such as a policy of 'don't care' on a 
question about which all true men do care— such as 
Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to 
disunionists reversing the divine rule, and calling not 
the sinners, but the righteous, to repentance — such as 
invocations of Washington imploring men to unsay what 
Washington did. 

"Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false 
accusations against us, nor frightened by menaces of de- 
struction to the government nor of dungeons to our- 
selves. Let us have faith that right makes might; and 
in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty, 
as God gives us power, and as we understand it." 

On Saturday, March 10th, Lincoln went from 
Norwich to Bridgeport. His speech there in the 
evening was delivered in the largest hall in the 
city. It was filled to overflowing and many failed 
to gain admission. The day following, Lincoln 
passed outside the boundaries of New England, 
never again to recross them. His reception had 
everywhere been a surprise to him, and the marked 
impression created had excelled anything that he 
had expected to accomplish in the East. 

No public man has ever visited New England 
for the purpose of addressing her people whose 
visit was more opportune in its relation to subse- 
quent events or more fortunate in its immediate 
and more deferred results. So important a bear- 
ing in result did this trip have upon Lincoln's 
career that one is surprised at the meagre and un- 
reliable mention it has had from his biographers: 



so closely did it knit itself into the fabric of our 
local history that it is a public misfortune for 
New England that no competent pen has made it a 
part of her records. And now, lest it be thought 
that an undue importance is being given to this 
short sojourn in New England, let us briefly con- 
sider it in these three aspects: 

1. Its fortunate effect on the State election in Con- 
necticut. 

2. Its influence upon the New England delegates to 
the nominating convention of three months later. 

8. Its salutary consequence in allaying doubt and in- 
spiring confidence in Lincoln's candidacy and ad- 
ministration. 

The spring elections in New England followed 
within a month after Lincoln's departure. They 
were favorable to the cause he had advocated in 
all the states, except in Rhode Island. The strug- 
gle was closest and most hotly contested in Con- 
necticut, and here Lincoln had contributed largely 
to the final successful result: indeed, it is not too 
much to claim that, except for his speeches in 
this state, the result would have been reversed. 
Buckingham was re-elected Governor by the small 
plurality of 451 votes. If 226 only of those votes 
had been cast against him and for his opponent, 
then Connecticut's second great war governor 
would have failed of an election. To claim that 
Lincoln converted less than 300 votes from Sey- 
mour to Buckingham, would be to greatly under- 
estimate the quality of his work and the strength 
of his appeals. And what if Buckingham had met 
defeat.^ Connecticut's governor would have been 

[31] 



Thomas H. Seymour, an earlier governor of the 
state, a veteran soldier and one esteemed by his 
neighbors and friends but withal a man known as 
a "peace Democrat", whose sympathies had al- 
ways been largely with the South and who con- 
tinued his opposition to the war from its begin- 
ing to its close. Instead of Connecticut proving a 
strong right arm for Lincoln to lean upon, she 
would have been a hindrance and obstruction to 
the national administration, her example would 
have been lost upon the nation, and her true posi- 
tion in the great struggle misrepresented for all 
time. 

By a turn of fortune unexpected and entirely 
unlocked for in the East, and only three months 
after his departure from New England, Mr. Lin- 
coln was nominated on the third ballot for Presi- 
dent of the United States by the Republican Na- 
tional Convention at Chicago. A simple analysis 
of the manner in which some of the votes were 
cast in the convention will suffice to develop the 
second point that we wish to emphasize. It was 
the general expectation that New England's full 
voting strength was sure for Seward; but on the 
first ballot, Lincoln received nineteen of her eighty- 
two votes, and on the third and final ballot he re- 
ceived forty-two. Maine's vote did not change 
from first to last — six for Lincoln and ten for 
Seward. New Hampshire did not give Lincoln 
less than seven of her ten votes on any ballot. On 
the first ballot, Vermont complimented one of her 
own sons with her ten votes but, on the next two 
ballots, all went to Lincoln. Massachusetts had 

[32] 



twenty-six votes, of which she gave Lincoln four 
on the first and second ballot, and eight on the 
third. Rhode Island's vote was scattering on the 
first ballot without any for Lincoln; she gave hira 
five of her eight on the third. Connecticut cast a 
scattering vote throughout the entire balloting; of 
her twelve votes, Lincoln received two on the first 
ballot and four on the second and third. Does 
this not show a remarkable defection of eastern 
votes to a western candidate — a tendency the more 
remarkable because the chances of that candidate 
had hardly been seriously regarded in the East 
before the convention. It was another result of 
Lincoln's visit to New England. 

But beyond all else, the great thing and the 
tremendously important thing accomplished by 
Lincoln's visit was that it left behind a good im- 
pression. Comparatively few only, out of the 
great body of New England people, had the chance 
to hear him, but those so favored had been im- 
pressed with the fact that he was an earnest and 
talented man. And for all concerned, the impres- 
sion was a fortunate one to be abroad in New 
England at that time. 

Lincoln's nomination was not only a great sur- 
prise, but even a shock to the East. "I remem- 
ber," says a Republican of 1860, "that when I 
first read the news on a bulletin board, as I came 
down street in Philadelphia, I experienced a mo- 
ment of intense physical pain; it was as though 
some one had dealt me a heavy blow over the head, 
then my strength failed me. I believed our cause 
was doomed." 

[33] 



It was simply a thing that happened against all 
eastern predictions and forecasts. Tarbell's "Life 
of Lincoln" tells how far afield these forecasts 
were: 

*'In the first four months of 1860, his name was almost 
unmentioned as a presidential candidate in the public 
prints of the East. In a list of twenty-one prominent 
candidates, prepared by D. W. Bartlett and published 
in New York towards the end of 1859, Lincoln's name 
is not mentioned; nor does it appear in a list of twenty- 
four of 'our living representative men' prepared for 
presidential purposes by John Savage and published in 
Philadelphia in 1860. 

"Up to the opening of the convention in May there 
was, in fact, no specially prominent mention of Lincoln 
by the eastern press. 

"Greeley, in the New York Tribune, printed corre- 
spondence favoring the nomination of prominent Re- 
publicans; but not of Lincoln. The New York Herald 
recognized six aspirants, but Lincoln was not among 
them. May 10th, 'The Independent' in an editorial on 
*The Nomination at Chicago' said 'Give us a man known 
to be true upon the only question that enters into the 
canvass — a Seward, a Chase, a Wade, a Sumner, a 
Fessenden, a Banks.' But it did not mention Lincoln. 
His most conspicuous Eastern recognition before the 
convention was in 'Harpers Weekly' of May 12th, his 
face being included in a double page of portraits of 
*eleven prominent candidates for the Republican presi- 
dential nomination at Chicago'. Brief biographical 
sketches appeared in the same number — the last and 
shortest of them being of Lincoln." 

In such degree as these forecasts were remote 
from the actual event, so much greater was the 
shock to the great body of the eastern people when 
the unexpected thing happened and the news of 
Lincoln's nomination was flashed across the coun- 
try. A feeling of dismay seized many serious 
minded people, and on many lips the question was 

[34] 



"Who is this man Lincoln who has been chosen 
over the heads of more experienced and well- 
known men; was he, indeed, but an obscure coun- 
try lawyer, an adventurer without pedigree, a 
coarse backwoodsman who did not know the art 
of v/earing clothes and who knew even less about 
directing the affairs of a nation?" It was an 
emergency when confidence could be restored with 
no uncertain answer to such questionings. And 
here is the opportuneness and tremendous impor- 
tance of Lincoln's New England trip. It had left 
in the East, only three months before, its own 
answer and the best possible answer to all these 
questions. Those who had listened to Lincoln — 
few though they were as compared to those who 
had not — in no uncertain terms praised his ability 
and earnestness and gave themselves to his sup- 
port with a zeal and diligence that at once re- 
stored faith and soon created enthusiasm. So too 
his party press, especially in those cities lying 
along the route of his trip, had not to seek its 
information from the West but with a prompt re- 
sponse to all questionings and shafts of ridicule, 
sprang to Lincoln's support with the same spirit, 
if not with the same words, as the "New London 
Daily Chronicle" of May 21st, 1860: 

"We shall give him our vote as a matter of course. 
He came to Connecticut and New Hampshire a short 
time ago to assist them in carrying their state elections, 
and they will be likely to do something in the way of 
enthusiasm and voting for him in return. He will 
make what we have not had lately — an honest President. 
He is neither a trickster nor a time server but a straight- 
forward, manly, able man who believes in the principles 

[35] 



he represents. He is in fact the Republican platform 
in boots. God bless him and give him victory." 

History records the answer to the prayer; how 
between May and November, respect and ajffection 
grew for Lincoln; how the entire electoral vote of 
New England contributed to his election; how 
Connecticut furnished a Gideon Welles for his 
cabinet and a Governor Buckingham for his sup- 
port; how during the dark days of the Civil War, 
New England's loyalty did not falter and she 
gave of her best unstintingly for the cause; how, 
as an earnest of the continuance of that bond of 
sympathetic relation established by his visit to 
her soil, New England again gave Lincoln her 
entire electoral vote in 1864; how, when a few 
months later Lincoln gave up his life at Wash- 
ington, the full meed of victory had been won and 
he passed into history the greatest American of 
the nineteenth century. 



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